Beam Management Solution for MPE

ABSTRACT

Apparatuses, systems, and methods for a user equipment device (UE) to perform methods for triggering a change in beam configuration based on UL beam conditions. The UE may detect an unsafe UL beam condition for an UL beam based, at least in part, on an MPE level being exceeded by the UL beam. In response to the detection, remedial actions that to alleviate the unsafe UL beam condition may be performed. The remedial actions may prioritize UL beam quality over DL beam quality and may include reducing a transmit power of the UL beam based on an MPR, triggering an intra-panel antenna switch to a candidate UL beam that satisfies one or more conditions for intra-panel beam switching, triggering an inter-panel antenna switch to a candidate UL beam that satisfies one or more conditions for intra-panel beam switching, and/or signaling a beam failure to a network serving the UE.

PRIORITY DATA

This application is the National Stage of International Application No.PCT/CN2019/105721, titled “Beam Management Solution for MaximumPermissible Exposure”, filed Sep. 12, 2019, which is hereby incorporatedby reference in its entirety as though fully and completely set forthherein.

FIELD

The present application relates to wireless devices, and moreparticularly to apparatuses, systems, and methods for a wireless deviceto trigger a change in beam configuration based on UL beam conditions,e.g., based on an UL beam reaching or exceeding a maximum permissibleexposure (MPE) level.

DESCRIPTION OF THE RELATED ART

Wireless communication systems are rapidly growing in usage. In recentyears, wireless devices such as smart phones and tablet computers havebecome increasingly sophisticated. In addition to supporting telephonecalls, many mobile devices now provide access to the internet, email,text messaging, and navigation using the global positioning system(GPS), and are capable of operating sophisticated applications thatutilize these functionalities.

Long Term Evolution (LTE) has become the technology of choice for themajority of wireless network operators worldwide, providing mobilebroadband data and high-speed Internet access to their subscriber base.LTE defines a number of downlink (DL) physical channels, categorized astransport or control channels, to carry information blocks received frommedium access control (MAC) and higher layers. LTE also defines a numberof physical layer channels for the uplink (UL).

For example, LTE defines a Physical Downlink Shared Channel (PDSCH) as aDL transport channel. The PDSCH is the main data-bearing channelallocated to users on a dynamic and opportunistic basis. The PDSCHcarries data in Transport Blocks (TB) corresponding to a MAC protocoldata unit (PDU), passed from the MAC layer to the physical (PHY) layeronce per Transmission Time Interval (TTI). The PDSCH is also used totransmit broadcast information such as System Information Blocks (SIB)and paging messages.

As another example, LTE defines a Physical Downlink Control Channel(PDCCH) as a DL control channel that carries the resource assignment forUEs that are contained in a Downlink Control Information (DCI) message.Multiple PDCCHs can be transmitted in the same subframe using ControlChannel Elements (CCE), each of which is a nine set of four resourceelements known as Resource Element Groups (REG). The PDCCH employsquadrature phase-shift keying (QPSK) modulation, with four QPSK symbolsmapped to each REG. Furthermore, 1, 2, 4, or 8 CCEs can be used for aUE, depending on channel conditions, to ensure sufficient robustness.

Additionally, LTE defines a Physical Uplink Shared Channel (PUSCH) as aUL channel shared by all devices (user equipment, UE) in a radio cell totransmit user data to the network. The scheduling for all UEs is undercontrol of the LTE base station (enhanced Node B, or eNB). The eNB usesthe uplink scheduling grant (DCI format 0) to inform the UE aboutresource block (RB) assignment, and the modulation and coding scheme tobe used. PUSCH typically supports QPSK and quadrature amplitudemodulation (QAM). In addition to user data, the PUSCH also carries anycontrol information necessary to decode the information, such astransport format indicators and multiple-in multiple-out (MIMO)parameters. Control data is multiplexed with information data prior todigital Fourier transform (DFT) spreading.

A proposed next telecommunications standard moving beyond the currentInternational Mobile Telecommunications-Advanced (IMT-Advanced)Standards is called 5th generation mobile networks or 5th generationwireless systems, or 5G for short (otherwise known as 5G-NR for 5G NewRadio, also simply referred to as NR). 5G-NR proposes a higher capacityfor a higher density of mobile broadband users, also supportingdevice-to-device, ultra-reliable, and massive machine communications, aswell as lower latency and lower battery consumption, than current LTEstandards. Further, the 5G-NR standard may allow for less restrictive UEscheduling as compared to current LTE standards. Consequently, effortsare being made in ongoing developments of 5G-NR to take advantage ofhigher throughputs possible at higher frequencies.

SUMMARY

Embodiments relate to apparatuses, systems, and methods for a UE totrigger a change in beam configuration based on UL beam conditions,e.g., such as to limit and/or avoid maximum possible exposure.

In some embodiments, a wireless device, e.g., such as a user equipmentdevice (UE), may be configured to detect an unsafe uplink (UL) beamcondition for an UL beam. The detection may be based, at least in part,on a maximum possible exposure (MPE) level being exceeded by the ULbeam. In response to the detection, one or more remedial actions toalleviate the unsafe UL beam condition may be performed. The remedialactions may prioritize UL beam quality over DL beam quality. In someembodiments, the remedial actions may include any, any combination of,and/or all of reducing a transmit power of the UL beam based on amaximum power reduction (MPR), triggering an intra-panel switch to afirst candidate UL beam that satisfies one or more conditions forintra-panel beam switching, triggering an inter-panel switch to a secondcandidate UL beam that satisfies one or more conditions for inter-panelbeam switching, and/or signaling a beam failure to a network serving theUE based on the unsafe UL beam condition.

The techniques described herein may be implemented in and/or used with anumber of different types of devices, including but not limited tocellular phones, tablet computers, wearable computing devices, portablemedia players, and any of various other computing devices.

This Summary is intended to provide a brief overview of some of thesubject matter described in this document. Accordingly, it will beappreciated that the above-described features are merely examples andshould not be construed to narrow the scope or spirit of the subjectmatter described herein in any way. Other features, aspects, andadvantages of the subject matter described herein will become apparentfrom the following Detailed Description, Figures, and Claims.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

A better understanding of the present subject matter can be obtainedwhen the following detailed description of various embodiments isconsidered in conjunction with the following drawings, in which:

FIG. 1A illustrates an example wireless communication system accordingto some embodiments.

FIG. 1B illustrates an example of a base station (BS) and an accesspoint in communication with a user equipment (UE) device according tosome embodiments.

FIG. 2 illustrates an example simplified block diagram of a WLAN AccessPoint (AP), according to some embodiments.

FIG. 3 illustrates an example block diagram of a UE according to someembodiments.

FIG. 4 illustrates an example block diagram of a BS according to someembodiments.

FIG. 5 illustrates an example block diagram of cellular communicationcircuitry, according to some embodiments.

FIG. 6A illustrates an example of connections between an EPC network, anLTE base station (eNB), and a 5G NR base station (gNB).

FIG. 6B illustrates an example of a protocol stack for an eNB and a gNB.

FIG. 7A illustrates an example of a 5G network architecture thatincorporates both 3GPP (e.g., cellular) and non-3GPP (e.g.,non-cellular) access to the 5G CN, according to some embodiments.

FIG. 7B illustrates an example of a 5G network architecture thatincorporates both dual 3GPP (e.g., LTE and 5G NR) access and non-3GPPaccess to the 5G CN, according to some embodiments.

FIG. 8 illustrates an example of a baseband processor architecture for aUE, according to some embodiments.

FIG. 9 illustrates a block diagram of an example of a method for a UE totrigger a change in beam configuration based on UL beam conditions,according to some embodiments.

FIG. 10 illustrates a block diagram of an example of a process for a UEto trigger a change in beam configuration based on UL beam conditions,according to some embodiments.

FIGS. 11-14 illustrate block diagrams of further examples of methods fora UE to trigger a change in UL beam configuration based on UL beamconditions, according to some embodiments.

While the features described herein may be susceptible to variousmodifications and alternative forms, specific embodiments thereof areshown by way of example in the drawings and are herein described indetail. It should be understood, however, that the drawings and detaileddescription thereto are not intended to be limiting to the particularform disclosed, but on the contrary, the intention is to cover allmodifications, equivalents and alternatives falling within the spiritand scope of the subject matter as defined by the appended claims.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION Terms

The following is a glossary of terms used in this disclosure:

Memory Medium—Any of various types of non-transitory memory devices orstorage devices. The term “memory medium” is intended to include aninstallation medium, e.g., a CD-ROM, floppy disks, or tape device; acomputer system memory or random access memory such as DRAM, DDR RAM,SRAM, EDO RAM, Rambus RAM, etc.; a non-volatile memory such as a Flash,magnetic media, e.g., a hard drive, or optical storage; registers, orother similar types of memory elements, etc. The memory medium mayinclude other types of non-transitory memory as well or combinationsthereof. In addition, the memory medium may be located in a firstcomputer system in which the programs are executed, or may be located ina second different computer system which connects to the first computersystem over a network, such as the Internet. In the latter instance, thesecond computer system may provide program instructions to the firstcomputer for execution. The term “memory medium” may include two or morememory mediums which may reside in different locations, e.g., indifferent computer systems that are connected over a network. The memorymedium may store program instructions (e.g., embodied as computerprograms) that may be executed by one or more processors.

Carrier Medium—a memory medium as described above, as well as a physicaltransmission medium, such as a bus, network, and/or other physicaltransmission medium that conveys signals such as electrical,electromagnetic, or digital signals.

Programmable Hardware Element—includes various hardware devicescomprising multiple programmable function blocks connected via aprogrammable interconnect. Examples include FPGAs (Field ProgrammableGate Arrays), PLDs (Programmable Logic Devices), FPOAs (FieldProgrammable Object Arrays), and CPLDs (Complex PLDs). The programmablefunction blocks may range from fine grained (combinatorial logic or lookup tables) to coarse grained (arithmetic logic units or processorcores). A programmable hardware element may also be referred to as“reconfigurable logic”.

Computer System—any of various types of computing or processing systems,including a personal computer system (PC), mainframe computer system,workstation, network appliance, Internet appliance, personal digitalassistant (PDA), television system, grid computing system, or otherdevice or combinations of devices. In general, the term “computersystem” can be broadly defined to encompass any device (or combinationof devices) having at least one processor that executes instructionsfrom a memory medium.

User Equipment (UE) (or “UE Device”)—any of various types of computersystems devices which are mobile or portable and which performs wirelesscommunications. Examples of UE devices include mobile telephones orsmart phones (e.g., iPhone™, Android™-based phones), portable gamingdevices (e.g., Nintendo DS™ PlayStation Portable™, Gameboy Advance™,iPhone™), laptops, wearable devices (e.g. smart watch, smart glasses),PDAs, portable Internet devices, music players, data storage devices, orother handheld devices, etc. In general, the term “UE” or “UE device”can be broadly defined to encompass any electronic, computing, and/ortelecommunications device (or combination of devices) which is easilytransported by a user and capable of wireless communication.

Base Station—The term “Base Station” has the full breadth of itsordinary meaning, and at least includes a wireless communication stationinstalled at a fixed location and used to communicate as part of awireless telephone system or radio system.

Processing Element—refers to various elements or combinations ofelements that are capable of performing a function in a device, such asa user equipment or a cellular network device. Processing elements mayinclude, for example: processors and associated memory, portions orcircuits of individual processor cores, entire processor cores,processor arrays, circuits such as an ASIC (Application SpecificIntegrated Circuit), programmable hardware elements such as a fieldprogrammable gate array (FPGA), as well any of various combinations ofthe above.

Channel—a medium used to convey information from a sender (transmitter)to a receiver. It should be noted that since characteristics of the term“channel” may differ according to different wireless protocols, the term“channel” as used herein may be considered as being used in a mannerthat is consistent with the standard of the type of device withreference to which the term is used. In some standards, channel widthsmay be variable (e.g., depending on device capability, band conditions,etc.). For example, LTE may support scalable channel bandwidths from 1.4MHz to 20 MHz. In contrast, WLAN channels may be 22 MHz wide whileBluetooth channels may be 1 Mhz wide. Other protocols and standards mayinclude different definitions of channels. Furthermore, some standardsmay define and use multiple types of channels, e.g., different channelsfor uplink or downlink and/or different channels for different uses suchas data, control information, etc.

Band—The term “band” has the full breadth of its ordinary meaning, andat least includes a section of spectrum (e.g., radio frequency spectrum)in which channels are used or set aside for the same purpose.

Automatically—refers to an action or operation performed by a computersystem (e.g., software executed by the computer system) or device (e.g.,circuitry, programmable hardware elements, ASICs, etc.), without userinput directly specifying or performing the action or operation. Thusthe term “automatically” is in contrast to an operation being manuallyperformed or specified by the user, where the user provides input todirectly perform the operation. An automatic procedure may be initiatedby input provided by the user, but the subsequent actions that areperformed “automatically” are not specified by the user, i.e., are notperformed “manually”, where the user specifies each action to perform.For example, a user filling out an electronic form by selecting eachfield and providing input specifying information (e.g., by typinginformation, selecting check boxes, radio selections, etc.) is fillingout the form manually, even though the computer system must update theform in response to the user actions. The form may be automaticallyfilled out by the computer system where the computer system (e.g.,software executing on the computer system) analyzes the fields of theform and fills in the form without any user input specifying the answersto the fields. As indicated above, the user may invoke the automaticfilling of the form, but is not involved in the actual filling of theform (e.g., the user is not manually specifying answers to fields butrather they are being automatically completed). The presentspecification provides various examples of operations beingautomatically performed in response to actions the user has taken.

Approximately—refers to a value that is almost correct or exact. Forexample, approximately may refer to a value that is within 1 to 10percent of the exact (or desired) value. It should be noted, however,that the actual threshold value (or tolerance) may be applicationdependent. For example, in some embodiments, “approximately” may meanwithin 0.1% of some specified or desired value, while in various otherembodiments, the threshold may be, for example, 2%, 3%, 5%, and soforth, as desired or as required by the particular application.

Concurrent—refers to parallel execution or performance, where tasks,processes, or programs are performed in an at least partiallyoverlapping manner. For example, concurrency may be implemented using“strong” or strict parallelism, where tasks are performed (at leastpartially) in parallel on respective computational elements, or using“weak parallelism”, where the tasks are performed in an interleavedmanner, e.g., by time multiplexing of execution threads.

Various components may be described as “configured to” perform a task ortasks. In such contexts, “configured to” is a broad recitation generallymeaning “having structure that” performs the task or tasks duringoperation. As such, the component can be configured to perform the taskeven when the component is not currently performing that task (e.g., aset of electrical conductors may be configured to electrically connect amodule to another module, even when the two modules are not connected).In some contexts, “configured to” may be a broad recitation of structuregenerally meaning “having circuitry that” performs the task or tasksduring operation. As such, the component can be configured to performthe task even when the component is not currently on. In general, thecircuitry that forms the structure corresponding to “configured to” mayinclude hardware circuits.

Various components may be described as performing a task or tasks, forconvenience in the description. Such descriptions should be interpretedas including the phrase “configured to.” Reciting a component that isconfigured to perform one or more tasks is expressly intended not toinvoke 35 U.S.C. § 112(f) interpretation for that component.

FIGS. 1A and 1B—Communication Systems

FIG. 1A illustrates a simplified example wireless communication system,according to some embodiments. It is noted that the system of FIG. 1 ismerely one example of a possible system, and that features of thisdisclosure may be implemented in any of various systems, as desired.

As shown, the example wireless communication system includes a basestation 102A which communicates over a transmission medium with one ormore user devices 106A, 106B, etc., through 106N. Each of the userdevices may be referred to herein as a “user equipment” (UE). Thus, theuser devices 106 are referred to as UEs or UE devices.

The base station (BS) 102A may be a base transceiver station (BTS) orcell site (a “cellular base station”) and may include hardware thatenables wireless communication with the UEs 106A through 106N.

The communication area (or coverage area) of the base station may bereferred to as a “cell.” The base station 102A and the UEs 106 may beconfigured to communicate over the transmission medium using any ofvarious radio access technologies (RATs), also referred to as wirelesscommunication technologies, or telecommunication standards, such as GSM,UMTS (associated with, for example, WCDMA or TD-SCDMA air interfaces),LTE, LTE-Advanced (LTE-A), 5G new radio (5G NR), HSPA, 3GPP2 CDMA2000(e.g., 1×RTT, 1×EV-DO, HRPD, eHRPD), etc. Note that if the base station102A is implemented in the context of LTE, it may alternately bereferred to as an ‘eNodeB’ or ‘eNB’. Note that if the base station 102Ais implemented in the context of 5G NR, it may alternately be referredto as ‘gNodeB’ or ‘gNB’.

As shown, the base station 102A may also be equipped to communicate witha network 100 (e.g., a core network of a cellular service provider, atelecommunication network such as a public switched telephone network(PSTN), and/or the Internet, among various possibilities). Thus, thebase station 102A may facilitate communication between the user devicesand/or between the user devices and the network 100. In particular, thecellular base station 102A may provide UEs 106 with varioustelecommunication capabilities, such as voice, SMS and/or data services.

Base station 102A and other similar base stations (such as base stations102B . . . 102N) operating according to the same or a different cellularcommunication standard may thus be provided as a network of cells, whichmay provide continuous or nearly continuous overlapping service to UEs106A-N and similar devices over a geographic area via one or morecellular communication standards.

Thus, while base station 102A may act as a “serving cell” for UEs 106A-Nas illustrated in FIG. 1, each UE 106 may also be capable of receivingsignals from (and possibly within communication range of) one or moreother cells (which might be provided by base stations 102B-N and/or anyother base stations), which may be referred to as “neighboring cells”.Such cells may also be capable of facilitating communication betweenuser devices and/or between user devices and the network 100. Such cellsmay include “macro” cells, “micro” cells, “pico” cells, and/or cellswhich provide any of various other granularities of service area size.For example, base stations 102A-B illustrated in FIG. 1 might be macrocells, while base station 102N might be a micro cell. Otherconfigurations are also possible.

In some embodiments, base station 102A may be a next generation basestation, e.g., a 5G New Radio (5G NR) base station, or “gNB”. In someembodiments, a gNB may be connected to a legacy evolved packet core(EPC) network and/or to a NR core (NRC) network. In addition, a gNB cellmay include one or more transition and reception points (TRPs). Inaddition, a UE capable of operating according to 5G NR may be connectedto one or more TRPs within one or more gNBs.

Note that a UE 106 may be capable of communicating using multiplewireless communication standards. For example, the UE 106 may beconfigured to communicate using a wireless networking (e.g., Wi-Fi)and/or peer-to-peer wireless communication protocol (e.g., Bluetooth,Wi-Fi peer-to-peer, etc.) in addition to at least one cellularcommunication protocol (e.g., GSM, UMTS (associated with, for example,WCDMA or TD-SCDMA air interfaces), LTE, LTE-A, 5G NR, HSPA, 3GPP2CDMA2000 (e.g., 1×RTT, 1×EV-DO, HRPD, eHRPD), etc.). The UE 106 may alsoor alternatively be configured to communicate using one or more globalnavigational satellite systems (GNSS, e.g., GPS or GLONASS), one or moremobile television broadcasting standards (e.g., ATSC-M/H or DVB-H),and/or any other wireless communication protocol, if desired. Othercombinations of wireless communication standards (including more thantwo wireless communication standards) are also possible.

FIG. 1B illustrates user equipment 106 (e.g., one of the devices 106Athrough 106N) in communication with a base station 102 and an accesspoint 112, according to some embodiments. The UE 106 may be a devicewith both cellular communication capability and non-cellularcommunication capability (e.g., Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and so forth) such asa mobile phone, a hand-held device, a computer or a tablet, or virtuallyany type of wireless device.

The UE 106 may include a processor that is configured to execute programinstructions stored in memory. The UE 106 may perform any of the methodembodiments described herein by executing such stored instructions.Alternatively, or in addition, the UE 106 may include a programmablehardware element such as an FPGA (field-programmable gate array) that isconfigured to perform any of the method embodiments described herein, orany portion of any of the method embodiments described herein.

The UE 106 may include one or more antennas for communicating using oneor more wireless communication protocols or technologies. In someembodiments, the UE 106 may be configured to communicate using, forexample, CDMA2000 (1×RTT/1×EV-DO/HRPD/eHRPD), LTE/LTE-Advanced, or 5G NRusing a single shared radio and/or GSM, LTE, LTE-Advanced, or 5G NRusing the single shared radio. The shared radio may couple to a singleantenna, or may couple to multiple antennas (e.g., for MIMO) forperforming wireless communications. In general, a radio may include anycombination of a baseband processor, analog RF signal processingcircuitry (e.g., including filters, mixers, oscillators, amplifiers,etc.), or digital processing circuitry (e.g., for digital modulation aswell as other digital processing). Similarly, the radio may implementone or more receive and transmit chains using the aforementionedhardware. For example, the UE 106 may share one or more parts of areceive and/or transmit chain between multiple wireless communicationtechnologies, such as those discussed above.

In some embodiments, the UE 106 may include separate transmit and/orreceive chains (e.g., including separate antennas and other radiocomponents) for each wireless communication protocol with which it isconfigured to communicate. As a further possibility, the UE 106 mayinclude one or more radios which are shared between multiple wirelesscommunication protocols, and one or more radios which are usedexclusively by a single wireless communication protocol. For example,the UE 106 might include a shared radio for communicating using eitherof LTE or 5G NR (or LTE or 1×RTT or LTE or GSM), and separate radios forcommunicating using each of Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. Other configurationsare also possible.

FIG. 2—Access Point Block Diagram

FIG. 2 illustrates an exemplary block diagram of an access point (AP)112. It is noted that the block diagram of the AP of FIG. 2 is only oneexample of a possible system. As shown, the AP 112 may includeprocessor(s) 204 which may execute program instructions for the AP 112.The processor(s) 204 may also be coupled (directly or indirectly) tomemory management unit (MMU) 240, which may be configured to receiveaddresses from the processor(s) 204 and to translate those addresses tolocations in memory (e.g., memory 260 and read only memory (ROM) 250) orto other circuits or devices.

The AP 112 may include at least one network port 270. The network port270 may be configured to couple to a wired network and provide aplurality of devices, such as UEs 106, access to the Internet. Forexample, the network port 270 (or an additional network port) may beconfigured to couple to a local network, such as a home network or anenterprise network. For example, port 270 may be an Ethernet port. Thelocal network may provide connectivity to additional networks, such asthe Internet.

The AP 112 may include at least one antenna 234, which may be configuredto operate as a wireless transceiver and may be further configured tocommunicate with UE 106 via wireless communication circuitry 230. Theantenna 234 communicates with the wireless communication circuitry 230via communication chain 232. Communication chain 232 may include one ormore receive chains, one or more transmit chains or both. The wirelesscommunication circuitry 230 may be configured to communicate via Wi-Fior WLAN, e.g., 802.11. The wireless communication circuitry 230 mayalso, or alternatively, be configured to communicate via various otherwireless communication technologies, including, but not limited to, 5GNR, Long-Term Evolution (LTE), LTE Advanced (LTE-A), Global System forMobile (GSM), Wideband Code Division Multiple Access (WCDMA), CDMA2000,etc., for example when the AP is co-located with a base station in caseof a small cell, or in other instances when it may be desirable for theAP 112 to communicate via various different wireless communicationtechnologies.

In some embodiments, as further described below, an AP 112 may beconfigured to perform methods for a UE to trigger a change in beamconfiguration based on UL beam conditions, e.g., to avoid and/or limitmaximum possible exposure as further described herein.

FIG. 3—Block Diagram of a UE

FIG. 3 illustrates an example simplified block diagram of acommunication device 106, according to some embodiments. It is notedthat the block diagram of the communication device of FIG. 3 is only oneexample of a possible communication device. According to embodiments,communication device 106 may be a user equipment (UE) device, a mobiledevice or mobile station, a wireless device or wireless station, adesktop computer or computing device, a mobile computing device (e.g., alaptop, notebook, or portable computing device), a tablet and/or acombination of devices, among other devices. As shown, the communicationdevice 106 may include a set of components 300 configured to performcore functions. For example, this set of components may be implementedas a system on chip (SOC), which may include portions for variouspurposes. Alternatively, this set of components 300 may be implementedas separate components or groups of components for the various purposes.The set of components 300 may be coupled (e.g., communicatively;directly or indirectly) to various other circuits of the communicationdevice 106.

For example, the communication device 106 may include various types ofmemory (e.g., including NAND flash 310), an input/output interface suchas connector I/F 320 (e.g., for connecting to a computer system; dock;charging station; input devices, such as a microphone, camera, keyboard;output devices, such as speakers; etc.), the display 360, which may beintegrated with or external to the communication device 106, andcellular communication circuitry 330 such as for 5G NR, LTE, GSM, etc.,and short to medium range wireless communication circuitry 329 (e.g.,Bluetooth™ and WLAN circuitry). In some embodiments, communicationdevice 106 may include wired communication circuitry (not shown), suchas a network interface card, e.g., for Ethernet.

The cellular communication circuitry 330 may couple (e.g.,communicatively; directly or indirectly) to one or more antennas, suchas antennas 335 and 336 as shown. The short to medium range wirelesscommunication circuitry 329 may also couple (e.g., communicatively;directly or indirectly) to one or more antennas, such as antennas 337and 338 as shown. Alternatively, the short to medium range wirelesscommunication circuitry 329 may couple (e.g., communicatively; directlyor indirectly) to the antennas 335 and 336 in addition to, or insteadof, coupling (e.g., communicatively; directly or indirectly) to theantennas 337 and 338. The short to medium range wireless communicationcircuitry 329 and/or cellular communication circuitry 330 may includemultiple receive chains and/or multiple transmit chains for receivingand/or transmitting multiple spatial streams, such as in amultiple-input multiple output (MIMO) configuration.

In some embodiments, as further described below, cellular communicationcircuitry 330 may include dedicated receive chains (including and/orcoupled to, e.g., communicatively; directly or indirectly. dedicatedprocessors and/or radios) for multiple RATs (e.g., a first receive chainfor LTE and a second receive chain for 5G NR). In addition, in someembodiments, cellular communication circuitry 330 may include a singletransmit chain that may be switched between radios dedicated to specificRATs. For example, a first radio may be dedicated to a first RAT, e.g.,LTE, and may be in communication with a dedicated receive chain and atransmit chain shared with an additional radio, e.g., a second radiothat may be dedicated to a second RAT, e.g., 5G NR, and may be incommunication with a dedicated receive chain and the shared transmitchain.

The communication device 106 may also include and/or be configured foruse with one or more user interface elements. The user interfaceelements may include any of various elements, such as display 360 (whichmay be a touchscreen display), a keyboard (which may be a discretekeyboard or may be implemented as part of a touchscreen display), amouse, a microphone and/or speakers, one or more cameras, one or morebuttons, and/or any of various other elements capable of providinginformation to a user and/or receiving or interpreting user input.

The communication device 106 may further include one or more smart cards345 that include SIM (Subscriber Identity Module) functionality, such asone or more UICC(s) (Universal Integrated Circuit Card(s)) cards 345.

As shown, the SOC 300 may include processor(s) 302, which may executeprogram instructions for the communication device 106 and displaycircuitry 304, which may perform graphics processing and provide displaysignals to the display 360. The processor(s) 302 may also be coupled tomemory management unit (MMU) 340, which may be configured to receiveaddresses from the processor(s) 302 and translate those addresses tolocations in memory (e.g., memory 306, read only memory (ROM) 350, NANDflash memory 310) and/or to other circuits or devices, such as thedisplay circuitry 304, short to medium range wireless communicationcircuitry 329, cellular communication circuitry 330, connector I/F 320,and/or display 360. The MMU 340 may be configured to perform memoryprotection and page table translation or set up. In some embodiments,the MMU 340 may be included as a portion of the processor(s) 302.

As noted above, the communication device 106 may be configured tocommunicate using wireless and/or wired communication circuitry. Thecommunication device 106 may be configured to perform methods for a UEto trigger a change in beam configuration based on UL beam conditions,e.g., to avoid and/or limit maximum possible exposure as furtherdescribed herein.

As described herein, the communication device 106 may include hardwareand software components for implementing the above features for acommunication device 106 to communicate a scheduling profile for powersavings to a network. The processor 302 of the communication device 106may be configured to implement part or all of the features describedherein, e.g., by executing program instructions stored on a memorymedium (e.g., a non-transitory computer-readable memory medium).Alternatively (or in addition), processor 302 may be configured as aprogrammable hardware element, such as an FPGA (Field Programmable GateArray), or as an ASIC (Application Specific Integrated Circuit).Alternatively (or in addition) the processor 302 of the communicationdevice 106, in conjunction with one or more of the other components 300,304, 306, 310, 320, 329, 330, 340, 345, 350, 360 may be configured toimplement part or all of the features described herein.

In addition, as described herein, processor 302 may include one or moreprocessing elements. Thus, processor 302 may include one or moreintegrated circuits (ICs) that are configured to perform the functionsof processor 302. In addition, each integrated circuit may includecircuitry (e.g., first circuitry, second circuitry, etc.) configured toperform the functions of processor(s) 302.

Further, as described herein, cellular communication circuitry 330 andshort to medium range wireless communication circuitry 329 may eachinclude one or more processing elements. In other words, one or moreprocessing elements may be included in cellular communication circuitry330 and, similarly, one or more processing elements may be included inshort to medium range wireless communication circuitry 329. Thus,cellular communication circuitry 330 may include one or more integratedcircuits (ICs) that are configured to perform the functions of cellularcommunication circuitry 330. In addition, each integrated circuit mayinclude circuitry (e.g., first circuitry, second circuitry, etc.)configured to perform the functions of cellular communication circuitry330. Similarly, the short to medium range wireless communicationcircuitry 329 may include one or more ICs that are configured to performthe functions of short to medium range wireless communication circuitry329. In addition, each integrated circuit may include circuitry (e.g.,first circuitry, second circuitry, etc.) configured to perform thefunctions of short to medium range wireless communication circuitry 329.

FIG. 4—Block Diagram of a Base Station

FIG. 4 illustrates an example block diagram of a base station 102,according to some embodiments. It is noted that the base station of FIG.4 is merely one example of a possible base station. As shown, the basestation 102 may include processor(s) 404 which may execute programinstructions for the base station 102. The processor(s) 404 may also becoupled to memory management unit (MMU) 440, which may be configured toreceive addresses from the processor(s) 404 and translate thoseaddresses to locations in memory (e.g., memory 460 and read only memory(ROM) 450) or to other circuits or devices.

The base station 102 may include at least one network port 470. Thenetwork port 470 may be configured to couple to a telephone network andprovide a plurality of devices, such as UE devices 106, access to thetelephone network as described above in FIGS. 1 and 2.

The network port 470 (or an additional network port) may also oralternatively be configured to couple to a cellular network, e.g., acore network of a cellular service provider. The core network mayprovide mobility related services and/or other services to a pluralityof devices, such as UE devices 106. In some cases, the network port 470may couple to a telephone network via the core network, and/or the corenetwork may provide a telephone network (e.g., among other UE devicesserviced by the cellular service provider).

In some embodiments, base station 102 may be a next generation basestation, e.g., a 5G New Radio (5G NR) base station, or “gNB”. In suchembodiments, base station 102 may be connected to a legacy evolvedpacket core (EPC) network and/or to a NR core (NRC) network. Inaddition, base station 102 may be considered a 5G NR cell and mayinclude one or more transition and reception points (TRPs). In addition,a UE capable of operating according to 5G NR may be connected to one ormore TRPs within one or more gNB s.

The base station 102 may include at least one antenna 434, and possiblymultiple antennas. The at least one antenna 434 may be configured tooperate as a wireless transceiver and may be further configured tocommunicate with UE devices 106 via radio 430. The antenna 434communicates with the radio 430 via communication chain 432.Communication chain 432 may be a receive chain, a transmit chain orboth. The radio 430 may be configured to communicate via variouswireless communication standards, including, but not limited to, 5G NR,LTE, LTE-A, GSM, UMTS, CDMA2000, Wi-Fi, etc.

The base station 102 may be configured to communicate wirelessly usingmultiple wireless communication standards. In some instances, the basestation 102 may include multiple radios, which may enable the basestation 102 to communicate according to multiple wireless communicationtechnologies. For example, as one possibility, the base station 102 mayinclude an LTE radio for performing communication according to LTE aswell as a 5G NR radio for performing communication according to 5G NR.In such a case, the base station 102 may be capable of operating as bothan LTE base station and a 5G NR base station. As another possibility,the base station 102 may include a multi-mode radio which is capable ofperforming communications according to any of multiple wirelesscommunication technologies (e.g., 5G NR and Wi-Fi, LTE and Wi-Fi, LTEand UMTS, LTE and CDMA2000, UMTS and GSM, etc.).

As described further subsequently herein, the BS 102 may includehardware and software components for implementing or supportingimplementation of features described herein. The processor 404 of thebase station 102 may be configured to implement or supportimplementation of part or all of the methods described herein, e.g., byexecuting program instructions stored on a memory medium (e.g., anon-transitory computer-readable memory medium). Alternatively, theprocessor 404 may be configured as a programmable hardware element, suchas an FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Array), or as an ASIC (ApplicationSpecific Integrated Circuit), or a combination thereof. Alternatively(or in addition) the processor 404 of the BS 102, in conjunction withone or more of the other components 430, 432, 434, 440, 450, 460, 470may be configured to implement or support implementation of part or allof the features described herein.

In addition, as described herein, processor(s) 404 may be comprised ofone or more processing elements. In other words, one or more processingelements may be included in processor(s) 404. Thus, processor(s) 404 mayinclude one or more integrated circuits (ICs) that are configured toperform the functions of processor(s) 404. In addition, each integratedcircuit may include circuitry (e.g., first circuitry, second circuitry,etc.) configured to perform the functions of processor(s) 404.

Further, as described herein, radio 430 may be comprised of one or moreprocessing elements. In other words, one or more processing elements maybe included in radio 430. Thus, radio 430 may include one or moreintegrated circuits (ICs) that are configured to perform the functionsof radio 430. In addition, each integrated circuit may include circuitry(e.g., first circuitry, second circuitry, etc.) configured to performthe functions of radio 430.

FIG. 5: Block Diagram of Cellular Communication Circuitry

FIG. 5 illustrates an example simplified block diagram of cellularcommunication circuitry, according to some embodiments. It is noted thatthe block diagram of the cellular communication circuitry of FIG. 5 isonly one example of a possible cellular communication circuit. Accordingto embodiments, cellular communication circuitry 330 may be included ina communication device, such as communication device 106 describedabove. As noted above, communication device 106 may be a user equipment(UE) device, a mobile device or mobile station, a wireless device orwireless station, a desktop computer or computing device, a mobilecomputing device (e.g., a laptop, notebook, or portable computingdevice), a tablet and/or a combination of devices, among other devices.

The cellular communication circuitry 330 may couple (e.g.,communicatively; directly or indirectly) to one or more antennas, suchas antennas 335 a-b and 336 as shown (in FIG. 3). In some embodiments,cellular communication circuitry 330 may include dedicated receivechains (including and/or coupled to, e.g., communicatively; directly orindirectly. dedicated processors and/or radios) for multiple RATs (e.g.,a first receive chain for LTE and a second receive chain for 5G NR). Forexample, as shown in FIG. 5, cellular communication circuitry 330 mayinclude a modem 510 and a modem 520. Modem 510 may be configured forcommunications according to a first RAT, e.g., such as LTE or LTE-A, andmodem 520 may be configured for communications according to a secondRAT, e.g., such as 5G NR.

As shown, modem 510 may include one or more processors 512 and a memory516 in communication with processors 512. Modem 510 may be incommunication with a radio frequency (RF) front end 530. RF front end530 may include circuitry for transmitting and receiving radio signals.For example, RF front end 530 may include receive circuitry (RX) 532 andtransmit circuitry (TX) 534. In some embodiments, receive circuitry 532may be in communication with downlink (DL) front end 550, which mayinclude circuitry for receiving radio signals via antenna 335 a.

Similarly, modem 520 may include one or more processors 522 and a memory526 in communication with processors 522. Modem 520 may be incommunication with an RF front end 540. RF front end 540 may includecircuitry for transmitting and receiving radio signals. For example, RFfront end 540 may include receive circuitry 542 and transmit circuitry544. In some embodiments, receive circuitry 542 may be in communicationwith DL front end 560, which may include circuitry for receiving radiosignals via antenna 335 b.

In some embodiments, a switch 570 may couple transmit circuitry 534 touplink (UL) front end 572. In addition, switch 570 may couple transmitcircuitry 544 to UL front end 572. UL front end 572 may includecircuitry for transmitting radio signals via antenna 336. Thus, whencellular communication circuitry 330 receives instructions to transmitaccording to the first RAT (e.g., as supported via modem 510), switch570 may be switched to a first state that allows modem 510 to transmitsignals according to the first RAT (e.g., via a transmit chain thatincludes transmit circuitry 534 and UL front end 572). Similarly, whencellular communication circuitry 330 receives instructions to transmitaccording to the second RAT (e.g., as supported via modem 520), switch570 may be switched to a second state that allows modem 520 to transmitsignals according to the second RAT (e.g., via a transmit chain thatincludes transmit circuitry 544 and UL front end 572).

In some embodiments, the cellular communication circuitry 330 may beconfigured to perform methods for a UE to trigger a change in beamconfiguration based on UL beam conditions, e.g., to avoid and/or limitmaximum possible exposure as further described herein.

As described herein, the modem 510 may include hardware and softwarecomponents for implementing the above features or for time divisionmultiplexing UL data for NSA NR operations, as well as the various othertechniques described herein. The processors 512 may be configured toimplement part or all of the features described herein, e.g., byexecuting program instructions stored on a memory medium (e.g., anon-transitory computer-readable memory medium). Alternatively (or inaddition), processor 512 may be configured as a programmable hardwareelement, such as an FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Array), or as an ASIC(Application Specific Integrated Circuit). Alternatively (or inaddition) the processor 512, in conjunction with one or more of theother components 530, 532, 534, 550, 570, 572, 335 and 336 may beconfigured to implement part or all of the features described herein.

In addition, as described herein, processors 512 may include one or moreprocessing elements. Thus, processors 512 may include one or moreintegrated circuits (ICs) that are configured to perform the functionsof processors 512. In addition, each integrated circuit may includecircuitry (e.g., first circuitry, second circuitry, etc.) configured toperform the functions of processors 512.

As described herein, the modem 520 may include hardware and softwarecomponents for implementing the above features for communicating ascheduling profile for power savings to a network, as well as thevarious other techniques described herein. The processors 522 may beconfigured to implement part or all of the features described herein,e.g., by executing program instructions stored on a memory medium (e.g.,a non-transitory computer-readable memory medium). Alternatively (or inaddition), processor 522 may be configured as a programmable hardwareelement, such as an FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Array), or as an ASIC(Application Specific Integrated Circuit). Alternatively (or inaddition) the processor 522, in conjunction with one or more of theother components 540, 542, 544, 550, 570, 572, 335 and 336 may beconfigured to implement part or all of the features described herein.

In addition, as described herein, processors 522 may include one or moreprocessing elements. Thus, processors 522 may include one or moreintegrated circuits (ICs) that are configured to perform the functionsof processors 522. In addition, each integrated circuit may includecircuitry (e.g., first circuitry, second circuitry, etc.) configured toperform the functions of processors 522.

5G NR Architecture with LTE

In some implementations, fifth generation (5G) wireless communicationwill initially be deployed concurrently with current wirelesscommunication standards (e.g., LTE). For example, dual connectivitybetween LTE and 5G new radio (5G NR or NR) has been specified as part ofthe initial deployment of NR. Thus, as illustrated in FIGS. 6A-B,evolved packet core (EPC) network 600 may continue to communicate withcurrent LTE base stations (e.g., eNB 602). In addition, eNB 602 may bein communication with a 5G NR base station (e.g., gNB 604) and may passdata between the EPC network 600 and gNB 604. Thus, EPC network 600 maybe used (or reused) and gNB 604 may serve as extra capacity for UEs,e.g., for providing increased downlink throughput to UEs. In otherwords, LTE may be used for control plane signaling and NR may be usedfor user plane signaling. Thus, LTE may be used to establish connectionsto the network and NR may be used for data services.

FIG. 6B illustrates a proposed protocol stack for eNB 602 and gNB 604.As shown, eNB 602 may include a medium access control (MAC) layer 632that interfaces with radio link control (RLC) layers 622 a-b. RLC layer622 a may also interface with packet data convergence protocol (PDCP)layer 612 a and RLC layer 622 b may interface with PDCP layer 612 b.Similar to dual connectivity as specified in LTE-Advanced Release 12,PDCP layer 612 a may interface via a master cell group (MCG) bearer withEPC network 600 whereas PDCP layer 612 b may interface via a splitbearer with EPC network 600.

Additionally, as shown, gNB 604 may include a MAC layer 634 thatinterfaces with RLC layers 624 a-b. RLC layer 624 a may interface withPDCP layer 612 b of eNB 602 via an X2 interface for information exchangeand/or coordination (e.g., scheduling of a UE) between eNB 602 and gNB604. In addition, RLC layer 624 b may interface with PDCP layer 614.Similar to dual connectivity as specified in LTE-Advanced Release 12,PDCP layer 614 may interface with EPC network 600 via a secondary cellgroup (SCG) bearer. Thus, eNB 602 may be considered a master node (MeNB)while gNB 604 may be considered a secondary node (SgNB). In somescenarios, a UE may be required to maintain a connection to both an MeNBand a SgNB. In such scenarios, the MeNB may be used to maintain a radioresource control (RRC) connection to an EPC while the SgNB may be usedfor capacity (e.g., additional downlink and/or uplink throughput).

5G Core Network Architecture—Interworking with Wi-Fi

In some embodiments, the 5G core network (CN) may be accessed via (orthrough) a cellular connection/interface (e.g., via a 3GPP communicationarchitecture/protocol) and a non-cellular connection/interface (e.g., anon-3GPP access architecture/protocol such as Wi-Fi connection). FIG. 7Aillustrates an example of a 5G network architecture that incorporatesboth 3GPP (e.g., cellular) and non-3GPP (e.g., non-cellular) access tothe 5G CN, according to some embodiments. As shown, a user equipmentdevice (e.g., such as UE 106) may access the 5G CN through both a radioaccess network (RAN, e.g., such as gNB or base station 604) and anaccess point, such as AP 112. The AP 112 may include a connection to theInternet 700 as well as a connection to a non-3GPP inter-workingfunction (N3IWF) 702 network entity. The N3IWF may include a connectionto a core access and mobility management function (AMF) 704 of the 5GCN. The AMF 704 may include an instance of a 5G mobility management (5GMM) function associated with the UE 106. In addition, the RAN (e.g., gNB604) may also have a connection to the AMF 704. Thus, the 5G CN maysupport unified authentication over both connections as well as allowsimultaneous registration for UE 106 access via both gNB 604 and AP 112.As shown, the AMF 704 may include one or more functional entitiesassociated with the 5G CN (e.g., network slice selection function (NSSF)720, short message service function (SMSF) 722, application function(AF) 724, unified data management (UDM) 726, policy control function(PCF) 728, and/or authentication server function (AUSF) 730). Note thatthese functional entities may also be supported by a session managementfunction (SMF) 706 a and an SMF 706 b of the 5G CN. The AMF 706 may beconnected to (or in communication with) the SMF 706 a. Further, the gNB604 may in communication with (or connected to) a user plane function(UPF) 708 a that may also be communication with the SMF 706 a.Similarly, the N3IWF 702 may be communicating with a UPF 708 b that mayalso be communicating with the SMF 706 b. Both UPFs may be communicatingwith the data network (e.g., DN 710 a and 710 b) and/or the Internet 700and IMS core network 710.

FIG. 7B illustrates an example of a 5G network architecture thatincorporates both dual 3GPP (e.g., LTE and 5G NR) access and non-3GPPaccess to the 5G CN, according to some embodiments. As shown, a userequipment device (e.g., such as UE 106) may access the 5G CN throughboth a radio access network (RAN, e.g., such as gNB or base station 604or eNB or base station 602) and an access point, such as AP 112. The AP112 may include a connection to the Internet 700 as well as a connectionto the N3IWF 702 network entity. The N3IWF may include a connection tothe AMF 704 of the 5G CN. The AMF 704 may include an instance of the 5GMM function associated with the UE 106. In addition, the RAN (e.g., gNB604) may also have a connection to the AMF 704. Thus, the 5G CN maysupport unified authentication over both connections as well as allowsimultaneous registration for UE 106 access via both gNB 604 and AP 112.In addition, the 5G CN may support dual-registration of the UE on both alegacy network (e.g., LTE via base station 602) and a 5G network (e.g.,via base station 604). As shown, the base station 602 may haveconnections to a mobility management entity (MME) 742 and a servinggateway (SGW) 744. The MME 742 may have connections to both the SGW 744and the AMF 704. In addition, the SGW 744 may have connections to boththe SMF 706 a and the UPF 708 a. As shown, the AMF 704 may include oneor more functional entities associated with the 5G CN (e.g., NSSF 720,SMSF 722, AF 724, UDM 726, PCF 728, and/or AUSF 730). Note that UDM 726may also include a home subscriber server (HSS) function and the PCF mayalso include a policy and charging rules function (PCRF). Note furtherthat these functional entities may also be supported by the SMF 706 aand the SMF 706 b of the 5G CN. The AMF 706 may be connected to (or incommunication with) the SMF 706 a. Further, the gNB 604 may incommunication with (or connected to) the UPF 708 a that may also becommunication with the SMF 706 a. Similarly, the N3IWF 702 may becommunicating with a UPF 708 b that may also be communicating with theSMF 706 b. Both UPFs may be communicating with the data network (e.g.,DN 710 a and 710 b) and/or the Internet 700 and IMS core network 710.

Note that in various embodiments, one or more of the above describednetwork entities may be configured to perform methods to improvesecurity checks in a 5G NR network, including mechanisms for a UE totrigger a change in beam configuration based on UL beam conditions,e.g., to avoid and/or limit maximum possible exposure, e.g., as furtherdescribed herein.

FIG. 8 illustrates an example of a baseband processor architecture for aUE (e.g., such as UE 106), according to some embodiments. The basebandprocessor architecture 800 described in FIG. 8 may be implemented on oneor more radios (e.g., radios 329 and/or 330 described above) or modems(e.g., modems 510 and/or 520) as described above. As shown, thenon-access stratum (NAS) 810 may include a 5G NAS 820 and a legacy NAS850. The legacy NAS 850 may include a communication connection with alegacy access stratum (AS) 870. The 5G NAS 820 may include communicationconnections with both a 5G AS 840 and a non-3GPP AS 830 and Wi-Fi AS832. The 5G NAS 820 may include functional entities associated with bothaccess stratums. Thus, the 5G NAS 820 may include multiple 5G MMentities 826 and 828 and 5G session management (SM) entities 822 and824. The legacy NAS 850 may include functional entities such as shortmessage service (SMS) entity 852, evolved packet system (EPS) sessionmanagement (ESM) entity 854, session management (SM) entity 856, EPSmobility management (EMM) entity 858, and mobility management (MM)/GPRSmobility management (GMM) entity 860. In addition, the legacy AS 870 mayinclude functional entities such as LTE AS 872, UMTS AS 874, and/orGSM/GPRS AS 876.

Thus, the baseband processor architecture 800 allows for a common 5G-NASfor both 5G cellular and non-cellular (e.g., non-3GPP access). Note thatas shown, the 5G MM may maintain individual connection management andregistration management state machines for each connection.Additionally, a device (e.g., UE 106) may register to a single PLMN(e.g., 5G CN) using 5G cellular access as well as non-cellular access.Further, it may be possible for the device to be in a connected state inone access and an idle state in another access and vice versa. Finally,there may be common 5G-MM procedures (e.g., registration,de-registration, identification, authentication, as so forth) for bothaccesses.

Note that in various embodiments, one or more of the above describedfunctional entities of the 5G NAS and/or 5G AS may be configured toperform methods for a UE to trigger a change in beam configuration basedon UL beam conditions, e.g., to avoid and/or limit maximum possibleexposure, e.g., as further described herein.

Beam Management Solution for MPE

In current implementations, a mobile station, such as a user equipmentdevice (UE), may not be allowed (e.g., due to laws and/or regulations)to position (point) radio frequency (RF) beams in certain directions dueto human safety concerns, e.g., to remain below a maximum permissibleexposure (MPE) level. Additionally, a mobile station may have a maximumtransmit power limited (e.g., below a threshold) due to human safetyconcerns, e.g., to remain below a maximum permissible exposure (MPE)level. For example, the Electronic Code of Federal Regulations, Title47, defines MPE levels in the United States. In particular, 47 CFR1.1310 defines exposure limits for specific frequency ranges forOccupational/Controlled Exposure as well as GeneralPopulation/Uncontrolled Exposure. Such disruptions, e.g., beam blockingdue to position of the wireless station and/or reduced transmit power(to stay below a threshold) may adversely impact user experience.

Embodiments described herein provide systems, methods, and mechanismsfor a user equipment device (UE), such as UE 106, to comply withregulations while maintaining an optimal user experience. In otherwords, embodiments described herein provide systems, methods, andmechanisms for a UE, such as UE 106, to trigger a change in beamconfiguration based on UL beam conditions, e.g., avoid and/or limitmaximum possible exposure. In some embodiments, once a UE identifies anuplink (UL) beam as unsafe (e.g., due to human safety concerns), the UEmay:

(1) continue use of the UL beam, but at a reduced transmission power;

(2) transition to another UL beam within a current antenna panel;

(3) transition to another UL beam within another antenna panel; and/or

(4) signal a beam failure to the network.

In some embodiments, which option the UE choses may be dependent oncurrent transmission conditions and/or local conditions (e.g., positionand/or orientation of the UE relative to a user) associated with the UE.In some embodiments, the UE may first attempt to reduce transmissionpower prior to attempting other solutions.

For example, FIG. 9 illustrates a block diagram of an example of amethod for a UE to trigger a change in beam configuration based on ULbeam conditions, according to some embodiments. The method shown in FIG.9 may be used in conjunction with any of the systems, methods, ordevices shown in the Figures, among other devices. In variousembodiments, some of the method elements shown may be performedconcurrently, in a different order than shown, or may be omitted.Additional method elements may also be performed as desired. As shown,this method may operate as follows.

At 902, a UE, such as UE 106, may detect an unsafe uplink (UL) beamcondition. In some embodiments, safety of an UL beam may be based, atleast in part, on a direction of the UL beam relative to a user. In someembodiments, safety of an UL beam may be based, at least in part, on aposition and/or orientation of the UE relative to the user. In someembodiments, safety of an UL beam may be based, at least in part, on atransmission power level of the UE. In some embodiments, safety of an ULbeam may be relative to a maximum permissible exposure (MPE) level foran operating frequency range of the UL beam. In some embodiments,detection of the unsafe UL beam condition may include determining thatone or more of a direction of the UL beam relative to a user is unsafefor a current transmission power, a position and/or orientation of theUE relative to the user is unsafe for a current transmission power,and/or a transmission power level of the UE is unsafe. In someembodiments, determining that the transmission power level is unsafe forthe UL beam may include comparing the transmission power level to amaximum permissible exposure (MPE) level for an operating frequencyrange of the UL beam.

At 904, the UE may initiate (and/or perform) one or more remedialactions based on the detection of the unsafe UL beam condition. In someembodiments, the one or more remedial actions may prioritize UL beamquality over downlink (DL) beam quality. For example, the UE may reducetransmission power of the UL beam, signal a beam failure to the networkbased on the detection of the unsafe UL beam condition to initiateselection of a new UL beam (and/or a new beam pair (e.g., UL anddownlink (DL) beams), and/or transition to another UL beam within acurrent antenna panel and/or transition to another UL beam withinanother antenna panel. In some embodiments, the UE may attempt to reducetransmission power prior to initiating beam re-selection and/ortransitioning to another beam (intra-panel and/or inter-panel).

For example, in some embodiments, when the UE reduces transmission powerof the UL beam, the reduction may be based on a maximum power reduction(MPR), e.g., as signaled to the UE and/or as specified (e.g., via astandard). In some embodiments, the UE may reduce transmission powersuch that power exposure for each UL beam is reduced below the MPElevel. Note that MPR may be defined as a maximum allowable reduction inUL transmit power to enable a UE to avoid non-linear transmissioncharacteristics and/or to satisfy adjacent channel leakage requirements.In some embodiments, the MPR may be beam specific. In some embodiments,the UE may report a power headroom to the network (e.g., to a basestation of the network, such a gNB 604) if an MPR change is higher thana threshold. In other words, if the reduction in transmission power isgreater than a pre-determine amount, the UE may notify the network,e.g., to initiate a beam reselection procedure. In some embodiments, theUE may report power headroom to the network if the MPR change is for atleast one spatial relationship in a serving cell in a cell group ishigher than a threshold. In some embodiments, the UE may report powerheadroom to the network when the MPR is higher than a threshold. In someembodiments, the UE may only report the power headroom if a timerassociated with reporting the power headroom (e.g., a phr-ProhibitTimerand/or a timer specific to MPE events) has expired. In some embodiments,the MPR change may be determined based, at least in part, on a currentMPR and an MPR since last transmission of a power headroom report in amedium access control (MAC) entity for new transmissions. In someembodiments, the threshold may be predefined and/or configured by higherlayer signaling, e.g., such as radio resource control (RRC) signaling.In some embodiments, a spatial relationship information considered mayhave been configured in sounding reference signaling (SRS). In someembodiments, the SRS may include at least one type of the SRS forcodebook/non-codebook/beam management/antenna switching. In someembodiments, a serving cell group index may be configured by higherlayer signaling and/or predefined, e.g. all cells in frequency range 2.

In some embodiments, when reporting the power headroom, the UE mayreport an SRS resource index within and/or associated with a MAC controlelement (CE) for the power headroom report. In some embodiments, afterdecoding a MAC protocol data unit (PDU), the network may identify theunsafe beam and perform beam selection and/or beam re-selection.

In some embodiments, 3GPP TS 38.321 may be amended to include thefollowing text: “phr-ProhibitTimer expires or has expired, when the MACentity has UL resources for new transmission, and the following is truefor any of the activated Serving Cells in frequency range 2 of any MACentity with configured uplink:

-   -   there are UL resources allocated for transmission or there is a        PUCCH transmission on this cell, and the required power backoff        due to power management for at least one spatial relation info        configured in SRS for this cell has changed more than        phr-Tx-PowerFactorChange dB since the last transmission of a PHR        when the MAC entity had UL resources allocated for transmission        or PUCCH transmission on this cell.”

As another example of a remedial action, in some embodiments, after a UEidentifies an unsafe UL beam, the UE may switch to another candidate ULbeam dependent upon satisfying one or more conditions. The conditionsmay include:

(1) an MPR for the unsafe UL beam is greater than a first threshold;

(2) a layer 1 (L1) reference signal received power (RSRP) with MPRreduction for the unsafe UL beam is less than a second threshold;

(3) an L1-RSRP for the candidate UL beam is greater than a thirdthreshold; and/or

(4) an MPR for the candidate UL beam is less than a fourth threshold.

In some embodiments, each threshold may be predefined and/or configuredvia higher layer signaling. In some embodiments, such an UL beam switchmay cause a beam pair mismatch between the UE and the network. In someembodiments, to resolve the mismatch, the UE may trigger a soundingreference signal (SRS) procedure for beam management and/or the UE maytrigger L1-RSRP based beam reporting. In either case, the UE trigger(request) may be sent via a MAC CE, via PUCCH, and/or via contentionbased PRACH.

In some embodiments, if the UE triggers an SRS procedure for beammanagement, the UE may convey a subset of and/or all of:

(a) a synchronization signal block (SSB) resource index (SSBRI), achannel state information reference signal (CSI-RS) resource index(CRI), and/or an SRS resource index (SRI) configured in a spatialrelationship information element and/or an SRS resource indicator (SRI)for codebook/non-codebook;

(b) a serving cell index; and/or

(c) a bandwidth part index.

In some embodiments, after receiving such a triggering message, thenetwork may trigger an SRS procedure for beam management for networkbeam refinement to update the spatial relationship information with thesource.

In some embodiments, if the UE triggers L1-RSRP based beam reporting,the network may respond with an uplink grant with a dedicated radionetwork temporary identifier (RNTI). In some embodiments, afterreceiving the network's response, the UE may report the L1-RSRP with MPRimpact.

As a further example of a remedial action, in some embodiments, after aUE identifies an unsafe UL beam, the UE may switch to another antennapanel dependent upon satisfying one or more conditions, such as:

(1) an MPR for the unsafe UL beam is greater than a first threshold;

(2) an L1-RSRP with MPR reduction for the unsafe UL beam is less than asecond threshold;

(3) an L1-RSRP for the candidate UL beam in the new antenna panel isgreater than a third threshold; and/or

(4) an MPR for the candidate UL beam in the new antenna panel is lessthan a fourth threshold.

In some embodiments, each threshold may be predefined and/or configuredvia higher layer signaling. In some embodiments, if the UE uses oneantenna panel for downlink reception and another antenna panel (e.g.,the new antenna panel) for uplink transmission, the UE may not receivedownlink signals that are transmitted within a timing window around thedownlink signal for pathloss measurement. In some embodiments, thetiming window can be configured by higher layer signaling, predefined,and/or based on a UE capability. In some embodiments, within the timingwindow, the UE may switch to the new antenna panel for uplinktransmission and/or measurement of downlink signal for pathlossmeasurement.

In some embodiments, if the UE, after selection of the new antenna panelfor the UL beam, switches the DL beam to the new antenna panel, the UEmay perform a contention based PRACH based procedure. In someembodiments, after the procedure is finished, all the downlink anduplink beams may be based on the SSB and/or CSI-RS identified by thePRACH. Alternatively, in some embodiments, the UE may trigger an SRSprocedure for beam management and/or a L1-RSRP beam report.

As a further example of a remedial action, in some embodiments, after aUE identifies an unsafe UL beam, the UE may signal a beam failure to thenetwork. Note that beam failure detection is typically carried out basedon DL measurement quality based on hypothetical PDCCH BLER. For example,if (RSRP, SINR) measurement of a beam is below a threshold consistentlyfor a period of time, beam failure may be declared for this beam, withthe assumption that DL and UL beams have similar quality. However, uponidentification of an unsafe UL beam (e.g., when MPE issue occurs), theUL beam quality may differ from DL beam quality since additional MPR maybe needed for the UL beam, e.g., if the UL beam points to a human body.Thus, in some embodiments, UL signal quality may be used as a complementto DL signal quality for beam failure detection and radio link failuredetection. In some embodiments, an out-of-sync threshold may beseparately configured for UL, thus, when the UE evaluates beam failure,power management maximum power reduction (P-MPR) (e.g., a UE controlledparameter to meet specific absorption rate (SAR) requirements) may beconsidered prior to comparing with a threshold, e.g.:

(1) UL_signal_quality=DL_measurement−P-MPR

(2) DL_Measurement(Beam)−P-MPR(Beam)<UL_Threshold for beam failuredetection.

In some embodiments, when both UL and DL quality are considered for beamfailure detection, there may be 4 possible states:

(1) DL_meas>DL_thres && UL_qual>UL_thres (DL and UL good)

(2) DL_meas>DL_thres && UL_qual<UL_thres (DL good, UL lost)

(3) DL_meas<DL_thres && UL_qual>UL_thres (DL lost, UL good)

(4) DL_meas<DL_thres && UL_qual<UL_thres (DL and UL lost)

Thus, to enhance beam failure detection, beam failure declaration maytake both UL beam quality and DL beam quality into considerationjointly. In other words, the UE may declare a beam failure if DL beamfailure is detected, UL beam failure is detected, or if both UL and DLbeam failure is detected. In some embodiments, the UE may base candidatebeam selection on UL signal quality and/or on a combination of UL and DLsignal quality.

In some embodiments, when the UE detects an unsafe UL beam, the UE mayuse UL beam quality to determine RACH resources, e.g.,{DL_Measurement−P-MPR} for RACH resource selection. In some embodiments,a threshold may be configured for DL and/or UL beam quality and the UEmay transmit RACH on any UL beam that passes the threshold, e.g., inorder to reduce latency.

FIG. 10 illustrates a block diagram of an example of a process for a UEto trigger a change in beam configuration based on UL beam conditions,according to some embodiments. The process shown in FIG. 10 may be usedin conjunction with any of the systems, methods, or devices shown in theFigures, among other devices. In various embodiments, some of theprocess elements shown may be performed concurrently, in a differentorder than shown, or may be omitted. Additional process elements mayalso be performed as desired. As shown, this process may operate asfollows.

At 1002, a UE, such as UE 106 may detect an unsafe UL beam condition. Insome embodiments, safety of an UL beam may be based, at least in part,on one or more of a direction of the UL beam relative to a user, aposition and/or orientation of the UE relative to the user, and/or atransmission power level of the UE. In some embodiments, safety of an ULbeam may be relative to a maximum permissible exposure (MPE) level foran operating frequency range of the UL beam. In other words, detectionof the unsafe UL beam condition may include determining that a directionof the UL beam relative to a user is unsafe for a current transmissionpower, determining that a position and/or orientation of the UE relativeto the user is unsafe for a current transmission power, and/ordetermining that a transmission power level of the UE is unsafe. In someembodiments, determining that the transmission power level is unsafe forthe UL beam may include comparing the transmission power level to amaximum permissible exposure (MPE) level for an operating frequencyrange of the UL beam.

At 1004, the UE, in order to prioritize UL beam quality over downlink(DL) beam quality, may attempt to reduce transmission power for theunsafe UL beam. In some embodiments, reduction of the transmission powermay be based on a maximum power reduction (MPR). The MPR may be signaledto the UE (e.g., via higher layer signaling such as RRC signaling)and/or specified by a standard. In some embodiments, the UE may reducetransmission power such that power exposure for each UL beam is reducedbelow the MPE level. In some embodiments, the MPR may be beam specific.

At 1006, the UE may determine whether the reduction in transmissionpower was successful. In other words, the UE may determine whethertransmissions can be made successfully using the reduced transmissionpower. In some embodiments, the UE may report a power headroom to thenetwork (e.g., to a base station of the network, such a gNB 604) if anMPR change is higher than a threshold. In other words, if the reductionin transmission power is greater than a pre-determine amount, the UE maynotify the network. In some embodiments, the UE may report powerheadroom to the network if the MPR change for at least one spatialrelationship in a serving cell in a cell group is higher than athreshold. In some embodiments, the UE may report power headroom to thenetwork when the MPR is higher than a threshold. In some embodiments,the UE may only report the power headroom if a timer associated withreporting the power headroom (e.g., a phr-ProhibitTimer and/or a timerspecific to MPE events) has expired. In some embodiments, the MPR changemay be determined based, at least in part, on a current MPR and an MPRsince last transmission of a power headroom report in a medium accesscontrol (MAC) entity for new transmissions. In some embodiments, thethreshold may be predefined and/or configured by higher layer signaling,e.g., such as radio resource control (RRC) signaling.

At 1008, responsive to the reduction in transmission power succeeding,the UE may use the UL beam at the reduced transmission power andtransmit a power headroom repot to the network at the next opportunity.In some embodiments, the next opportunity to transmit the power headroomreport may be based on expiration of the timer associated with reportingthe power headroom (e.g., a phr-ProhibitTimer and/or a timer specific toMPE events).

At 1010, responsive to the reduction in transmission power failing, theUE may consider whether to signal a beam failure to the network.

At 1012, responsive to determining to signal a beam failure to thenetwork, the UE may perform (and/or initiate) a beam reselectionprocedure. In some embodiments, when reporting the power headroom, theUE may report an SRS resource index within and/or associated with a MACcontrol element (CE) for the power headroom report. In some embodiments,after decoding a MAC protocol data unit (PDU), the network may identifythe unsafe beam and perform beam selection and/or beam re-selection. Insome embodiments, UL signal quality may be used as a complement to DLsignal quality for beam failure detection and radio link failuredetection. In some embodiments, an out-of-sync threshold may beseparately configured for UL, thus, when the UE evaluates beam failure,P-MPR may be considered prior to comparing with a threshold, e.g.:

(1) UL_signal_quality=DL_measurement−P-MPR

(2) DL_Measurement(Beam)−P-MPR(Beam)<UL_Threshold.

In some embodiments, the UE may use UL beam quality to determine RACHresources, e.g., {DL_Measurement−P-MPR} for RACH resource selection. Insome embodiments, a threshold may be configured for DL and/or UL beamquality and the UE may transmit RACH on any UL beam that passes thethreshold, e.g., in order to reduce latency.

At 1014, responsive to determining to not signal a beam failure to thenetwork, the UE may attempt to select an alternate UL beam. In someembodiments, the alternate UL beam may be intra-panel (e.g., the unsafeUL beam and the alternate UL beam may be co-located in an antenna panelof the UE). In some embodiments, the alternate UL beam may beinter-panel (e.g., the unsafe UL bean and the alternate UL beam may belocated in different antenna panels of the UE). In some embodiments, oneor more conditions may be satisfied prior to switching to the alternateUL beam. For example, in some embodiments, the conditions may includethe MPR for the unsafe UL beam being greater than a first threshold, anL1-RSRP with MPR reduction for the unsafe UL beam being less than asecond threshold, an L1-RSRP for the alternate UL beam being greaterthan a third threshold, and/or an MPR for the alternate UL beam beingless than a fourth threshold. In some embodiments, each threshold may bepredefined and/or configured via higher layer signaling, e.g., such asRRC signaling. In some embodiments, such an UL beam switch may cause abeam pair (e.g., UL and DL beam) mismatch between the UE and thenetwork. In some embodiments, to resolve the mismatch, the UE maytrigger a sounding reference signal (SRS) procedure for beam managementand/or the UE may trigger L1-RSRP based beam reporting. In either case,the UE trigger (request) may be sent via a MAC CE, via PUCCH, and/or viacontention based PRACH.

In some embodiments, when the UE triggers an SRS procedure for beammanagement, the UE may transmit, to the network, one or more of anSSBRI, a CSI-RS CRI, an SRS SRI configured in a spatial relationshipinformation element, an SRS SRI for codebook/non-codebook, a servingcell index, and/or a bandwidth part index. In some embodiments, afterreceiving such a triggering message, the network may trigger an SRSprocedure for beam management for network beam refinement to update thespatial relationship information with the UE.

In some embodiments, if the UE triggers L1-RSRP based beam reporting,the network may respond with an uplink grant with a dedicated radionetwork temporary identifier (RNTI). In some embodiments, afterreceiving the network's response, the UE may report the L1-RSRP with MPRimpact.

At 1016, the UE may determine whether the selection to the alternate ULbeam was successful. In some embodiments, when selection is notsuccessful (e.g., an alternate UL beam does not meet one or moreconditions), the process may return to 1012 and the UE may initiate abeam reselection procedure based on UL beam conditions. Alternatively,when selection of the alternate UL beam is success, the process maycontinue at 1018.

At 1018, the UE may transmit using the alternate UL beam, e.g., based ondetermining that selection of the alternate UL beam was successful.Alternatively, if the selection was not successful, the process mayreturn to 1010 and the UE may signal a beam failure to the network. Insome embodiments, when the alternate UL beam is in a different antennapanel as compared to the unsafe UL beam, the UE may switch the DL beamto the antenna panel of the alternate UL beam. In such embodiments, theUE may perform a contention based PRACH based procedure. In someembodiments, after completion of the PRACH based procedure, all the DLand UL beams may be based on an SSB identified by the PRACH procedure.In some embodiments, after completion of the PRACH based procedure, allthe DL and UL beams may be based on a channel state informationreference signal (CSI-RS) identified by the PRACH procedure.Alternatively, in some embodiments, the UE may trigger an SRS procedurefor beam management and/or a L1-RSRP beam report.

FIGS. 11-14 illustrate block diagrams of further examples of methods fora UE to trigger a change in UL beam configuration based on UL beamconditions, according to some embodiments. The methods shown in FIGS.11-14 may be used in conjunction with any of the systems, methods, ordevices shown in the Figures, among other devices. In variousembodiments, some of the method elements shown may be performedconcurrently, in a different order than shown, or may be omitted.Additional method elements may also be performed as desired. In someembodiments, one or more of the methods may be combined. As shown, thesemethods may operate as follows.

Turning to FIG. 11, at 1102, a UE, such as UE 106 may detect an unsafeUL beam condition. In some embodiments, detection of the unsafe UL beamcondition may include determining that a direction of the UL beamrelative to a user is unsafe for a current transmission power,determining that a position and/or orientation of the UE relative to theuser is unsafe for a current transmission power, and/or determining thata transmission power level of the UE is unsafe. In some embodiments,determining that the transmission power level is unsafe for the UL beammay include comparing the transmission power level to a maximumpermissible exposure (MPE) level for an operating frequency range of theUL beam.

At 1104, the UE, in order to prioritize UL beam quality over downlink(DL) beam quality, may reduce transmission power for the unsafe UL beam.In some embodiments, reduction of the transmission power may be based onan MPR that may be signaled to the UE (e.g., via higher layer signalingsuch as RRC signaling) and/or specified by a standard. In someembodiments, the UE may reduce transmission power such that powerexposure for each UL beam is reduced below the MPE level. In someembodiments, the MPR may be beam specific.

In some embodiments, when the UE determines that transmissions cannot bemade successfully using the reduced transmission power, the UE mayreport a power headroom to the network (e.g., to a base station of thenetwork, such a gNB 604). In some embodiments, the UE may report powerheadroom to the network when an MPR change is higher than a threshold.In other words, if the reduction in transmission power is greater than apre-determine amount, the UE may notify the network. In someembodiments, the UE may report power headroom to the network if the MPRchange for at least one spatial relationship in a serving cell in a cellgroup is higher than a threshold. In some embodiments, the UE may reportpower headroom to the network when the MPR is higher than a threshold.In some embodiments, the UE may only report the power headroom if atimer associated with reporting the power headroom (e.g., aphr-ProhibitTimer and/or a timer specific to MPE events) has expired. Insome embodiments, the MPR change may be determined based, at least inpart, on a current MPR and an MPR since last transmission of a powerheadroom report in a medium access control (MAC) entity for newtransmissions. In some embodiments, the threshold may be predefinedand/or configured by higher layer signaling, e.g., such as radioresource control (RRC) signaling. In some embodiments, when reportingthe power headroom, the UE may report an SRS resource index withinand/or associated with a MAC control element (CE) for the power headroomreport. In some embodiments, after decoding a MAC protocol data unit(PDU), the network may identify the unsafe beam and perform beamselection and/or beam re-selection.

In some embodiments, responsive to the reduction in transmission powersucceeding, the UE may use the UL beam at the reduced transmission powerand transmit a power headroom repot to the network at the nextopportunity. In some embodiments, the next opportunity to transmit thepower headroom report may be based on expiration of the timer associatedwith reporting the power headroom (e.g., a phr-ProhibitTimer and/or atimer specific to MPE events).

Turning to FIG. 12, at 1202, a UE, such as UE 106 may detect an unsafeUL beam condition. In some embodiments, detection of the unsafe UL beamcondition may include determining that a direction of the UL beamrelative to a user is unsafe for a current transmission power,determining that a position and/or orientation of the UE relative to theuser is unsafe for a current transmission power, and/or determining thata transmission power level of the UE is unsafe. In some embodiments,determining that the transmission power level is unsafe for the UL beammay include comparing the transmission power level to a maximumpermissible exposure (MPE) level for an operating frequency range of theUL beam.

At 1204, the UE, in order to prioritize UL beam quality over downlink(DL) beam quality, may signal a beam failure to the network based on theunsafe UL beam condition. In some embodiments, UL signal quality may beused as a complement to DL signal quality for beam failure detection andradio link failure detection. In some embodiments, an out-of-syncthreshold may be separately configured for UL, thus, when the UEevaluates beam failure, P-MPR may be considered prior to comparing witha threshold, e.g. DL_Measurement(Beam)−P-MPR(Beam)<UL_Threshold for beamfailure detection. Thus, beam failure declaration may take both UL beamquality and DL beam quality into consideration jointly, in someembodiments. In other words, the UE may declare a beam failure if DLbeam failure is detected, UL beam failure is detected, or if both UL andDL beam failure is detected. In some embodiments, the UE may basecandidate beam selection on UL signal quality and/or on a combination ofUL and DL signal quality. In some embodiments, the UE may use UL beamquality to determine RACH resources, e.g., {DL_Measurement−P-MPR} forRACH resource selection. In some embodiments, a threshold may beconfigured for DL and/or UL beam quality and the UE may transmit RACH onany UL beam that passes the threshold, e.g., in order to reduce latency.

Turning to FIG. 13, at 1302, a UE, such as UE 106 may detect an unsafeUL beam condition. In some embodiments, detection of the unsafe UL beamcondition may include determining that a direction of the UL beamrelative to a user is unsafe for a current transmission power,determining that a position and/or orientation of the UE relative to theuser is unsafe for a current transmission power, and/or determining thata transmission power level of the UE is unsafe. In some embodiments,determining that the transmission power level is unsafe for the UL beammay include comparing the transmission power level to a maximumpermissible exposure (MPE) level for an operating frequency range of theUL beam.

At 1304, the UE may, in order to prioritize UL beam quality overdownlink (DL) beam quality, trigger an intra-panel UL beam switch. Insome embodiments, one or more conditions may be satisfied prior toswitching to an alternate UL beam. For example, in some embodiments, theconditions may include the MPR for the unsafe UL beam being greater thana first threshold, an L1-RSRP with MPR reduction for the unsafe UL beambeing less than a second threshold, an L1-RSRP for the alternate UL beambeing greater than a third threshold, and/or an MPR for the alternate ULbeam being less than a fourth threshold. In some embodiments, eachthreshold may be predefined and/or configured via higher layersignaling, e.g., such as RRC signaling. In some embodiments, such an ULbeam switch may cause a beam pair mismatch between the UE and thenetwork. In some embodiments, to resolve the mismatch, the UE maytrigger a sounding reference signal (SRS) procedure for beam managementand/or the UE may trigger L1-RSRP based beam reporting. In either case,the UE trigger (request) may be sent via a MAC CE, via PUCCH, and/or viacontention based PRACH.

In some embodiments, if the UE triggers an SRS procedure for beammanagement, the UE may convey a subset of and/or all of:

(a) a synchronization signal block (SSB) resource index (SSBRI), achannel state information reference signal (CSI-RS) resource index(CRI), and/or an SRS resource index (SRI) configured in a spatialrelationship information element and/or an SRS resource indicator (SRI)for codebook/non-codebook;

(b) a serving cell index; and/or

(c) a bandwidth part index.

In some embodiments, after receiving such a triggering message, thenetwork may trigger an SRS procedure for beam management for networkbeam refinement to update the spatial relationship information with thesource.

In some embodiments, if the UE triggers L1-RSRP based beam reporting,the network may respond with an uplink grant with a dedicated radionetwork temporary identifier (RNTI). In some embodiments, afterreceiving the network's response, the UE may report the L1-RSRP with MPRimpact.

Turning to FIG. 14, at 1402, a UE, such as UE 106 may detect an unsafeUL beam condition. In some embodiments, detection of the unsafe UL beamcondition may include determining that a direction of the UL beamrelative to a user is unsafe for a current transmission power,determining that a position and/or orientation of the UE relative to theuser is unsafe for a current transmission power, and/or determining thata transmission power level of the UE is unsafe. In some embodiments,determining that the transmission power level is unsafe for the UL beammay include comparing the transmission power level to a maximumpermissible exposure (MPE) level for an operating frequency range of theUL beam.

At 1404, the UE may, in order to prioritize UL beam quality overdownlink (DL) beam quality, trigger an inter-panel UL beam switch. Insome embodiments, one or more conditions may be satisfied prior toswitching to an alternate UL beam. For example, in some embodiments, theconditions may include the MPR for the unsafe UL beam being greater thana first threshold, an L1-RSRP with MPR reduction for the unsafe UL beambeing less than a second threshold, an L1-RSRP for the alternate UL beambeing greater than a third threshold, and/or an MPR for the alternate ULbeam being less than a fourth threshold. In some embodiments, eachthreshold may be predefined and/or configured via higher layersignaling, e.g., such as RRC signaling. In some embodiments, such an ULbeam switch may cause a beam pair (e.g., UL and DL beam) mismatchbetween the UE and the network. In some embodiments, to resolve themismatch, the UE may trigger a sounding reference signal (SRS) procedurefor beam management and/or the UE may trigger L1-RSRP based beamreporting. In either case, the UE trigger (request) may be sent via aMAC CE, via PUCCH, and/or via contention based PRACH.

In some embodiments, when the UE triggers an SRS procedure for beammanagement, the UE may transmit, to the network, one or more of anSSBRI, a CSI-RS CRI, an SRS SRI configured in a spatial relationshipinformation element, an SRS SRI for codebook/non-codebook, a servingcell index, and/or a bandwidth part index. In some embodiments, afterreceiving such a triggering message, the network may trigger an SRSprocedure for beam management for beam refinement to update the spatialrelationship information with the UE.

In some embodiments, if the UE triggers L1-RSRP based beam reporting,the network may respond with an uplink grant with a dedicated radionetwork temporary identifier (RNTI). In some embodiments, afterreceiving the network's response, the UE may report the L1-RSRP with MPRimpact.

It is well understood that the use of personally identifiableinformation should follow privacy policies and practices that aregenerally recognized as meeting or exceeding industry or governmentalrequirements for maintaining the privacy of users. In particular,personally identifiable information data should be managed and handledso as to minimize risks of unintentional or unauthorized access or use,and the nature of authorized use should be clearly indicated to users.

Embodiments of the present disclosure may be realized in any of variousforms. For example, some embodiments may be realized as acomputer-implemented method, a computer-readable memory medium, or acomputer system. Other embodiments may be realized using one or morecustom-designed hardware devices such as ASICs. Still other embodimentsmay be realized using one or more programmable hardware elements such asFPGAs.

In some embodiments, a non-transitory computer-readable memory mediummay be configured so that it stores program instructions and/or data,where the program instructions, if executed by a computer system, causethe computer system to perform a method, e.g., any of the methodembodiments described herein, or, any combination of the methodembodiments described herein, or, any subset of any of the methodembodiments described herein, or, any combination of such subsets.

In some embodiments, a device (e.g., a UE 106) may be configured toinclude a processor (or a set of processors) and a memory medium, wherethe memory medium stores program instructions, where the processor isconfigured to read and execute the program instructions from the memorymedium, where the program instructions are executable to implement anyof the various method embodiments described herein (or, any combinationof the method embodiments described herein, or, any subset of any of themethod embodiments described herein, or, any combination of suchsubsets). The device may be realized in any of various forms.

Although the embodiments above have been described in considerabledetail, numerous variations and modifications will become apparent tothose skilled in the art once the above disclosure is fully appreciated.It is intended that the following claims be interpreted to embrace allsuch variations and modifications.

What is claimed is:
 1. A user equipment device (UE), comprising: atleast one antenna; at least one radio, wherein the at least one radio isconfigured to perform cellular communication using at least one radioaccess technology (RAT); one or more processors coupled to the at leastone radio, wherein the one or more processors and the at least one radioare configured to perform voice and/or data communications; wherein theone or more processors are configured to cause the UE to: detect anunsafe uplink (UL) beam condition for at least one UL beam based, atleast in part, on a maximum possible exposure (MPE) level; and performone or more remedial actions including at least one of: reducing atransmit power of the at least one UL beam based on a maximum powerreduction (MPR); triggering an intra-panel switch to a first candidateUL beam that satisfies one or more conditions for intra-panel beamswitching; triggering an inter-panel switch to a second candidate ULbeam that satisfies one or more conditions for inter-panel beamswitching; or signaling a beam failure to a network serving the UE basedon the unsafe UL beam condition.
 2. The UE of claim 1, wherein, todetect the unsafe UL beam condition, the one or more processors arefurther configured to cause the UE to determine one or more of: adirection of the at least one UL beam relative to a user is unsafe for atransmission power of the at least one UL beam; a position and/ororientation of the UE relative to the user is unsafe for thetransmission power of the at least one UL beam; or a transmission powerlevel of the UE is unsafe based on the MPE level for an operatingfrequency range of the at least one UL beam.
 3. The UE of claim 1,wherein the one or more processors are further configured to cause theUE to: report a power headroom to the network when a change in MPRexceeds a first threshold or when a value of the MPR exceeds a secondthreshold.
 4. The UE of claim 3, wherein the report of the powerheadroom is sent at an expiration of a timer associated with reportingthe power headroom.
 5. The UE of claim 4, wherein a time associated withreporting the power headroom is specific to detection of unsafe UL beamconditions.
 6. The UE of claim 3, wherein the change in MPR is based ona current MPR and an MPR since last transmission of a power headroomreport in a medium access control (MAC) entity for new transmissions. 7.The UE of claim 1, wherein signaling the beam failure to the networkserving the UE includes the UE comparing a UL beam quality measurementto an UL beam quality threshold, wherein beam failure is signaled whenthe UL beam quality measurement is less than the UL beam qualitythreshold.
 8. The UE of claim 7, wherein the UL beam quality measurementis based on a downlink (DL) beam quality measurement less a powermanagement maximum power reduction (P-MPR).
 9. The UE of claim 7,wherein the one or more processors are further configured to cause theUE to: determine random access channel resources (RACH) based on the ULbeam quality measurement.
 10. An apparatus, comprising: a memory; and aprocessing element in communication with the memory, wherein theprocessing element is configured to: detect an unsafe uplink (UL) beamcondition for at least one UL beam based, at least in part, on a maximumpossible exposure (MPE) level; and perform, based on detection of theunsafe UL beam condition, one or more remedial actions to alleviate theunsafe UL beam condition, wherein the one or more remedial actionsprioritize UL beam quality over DL beam quality.
 11. The apparatus ofclaim 10, wherein the one or more remedial actions includes triggeringan intra-panel switch to a first UL beam that satisfies one or moreconditions for intra-panel beam switching, wherein the one or moreconditions include at least one of: a maximum power reduction (MPR) forthe unsafe UL beam exceeding a first threshold; a layer 1 (L1) referencesignal received power (RSRP) with MPR reduction for the unsafe UL beambeing less than a second threshold; an L1-RSRP for the first UL beamexceeding a third threshold; or an MPR for the first UL beam being lessthan a fourth threshold.
 12. The apparatus of claim 11, wherein thefirst, second, third, and fourth thresholds are predefined by a standardor configured via higher layer signaling with a network.
 13. Theapparatus of claim 11, wherein switching to the first UL beam causes abeam pair mismatch with a network, and wherein to resolve the beam pairmismatch, the processing element is further configured to trigger asounding reference signal (SRS) procedure for beam management or anL1-RSRP based beam reporting procedure.
 14. The apparatus of claim 13,wherein a request to trigger the SRS procedure or the L1-RSRP based beamreporting procedure is transmitted via at least one of a medium accesscontrol (MAC) control element (CE), a physical uplink control channel(PUCCH) transmission, or a contention based physical random accesschannel (PRACH) procedure.
 15. The apparatus of claim 13, wherein theprocessing element, as part of the SRS procedure, is further configuredto generate instructions to transmit one or more of: a synchronizationsignal block (SSB) resource index (SSBRI); a channel state informationreference signal (CSI-RS) resource index (CRI); an SRS resource index(SRI) configured in a spatial relationship information element; SRSresource indicator (SRI) for codebook/non-codebook; a serving cellindex; or a bandwidth part index.
 16. The apparatus of claim 13, whereinthe processing element, as part of the L1-RSRP based reportingprocedure, is further configured to: receive, from a network, an ULgrant with a dedicated radio network temporary identifier (RNTI); andreport, to the network, L1-RSRP with MPR impact.
 17. A non-transitorycomputer readable memory medium storing program instructions executableby processing circuitry to cause a user equipment device (UE) to: detectan unsafe uplink (UL) beam condition for at least one UL beam based, atleast in part, on a maximum possible exposure (MPE) level; and perform,based on detection of the unsafe UL beam condition, one or more remedialactions to alleviate the unsafe UL beam condition, wherein the one ormore remedial actions prioritize UL beam quality over DL beam quality,and wherein the one or more remedial actions include at least one of:reducing a transmit power of the at least one UL beam based on a maximumpower reduction (MPR); triggering an intra-panel switch to a firstcandidate UL beam that satisfies one or more conditions for intra-panelbeam switching; triggering an inter-panel switch to a second candidateUL beam that satisfies one or more conditions for inter-panel beamswitching; or signaling a beam failure to a network serving the UE basedon the unsafe UL beam condition.
 18. The non-transitory computerreadable memory medium of claim 17, wherein the one or more conditionsfor intra-panel beam switching includes at least one of: a maximum powerreduction (MPR) for the unsafe UL beam exceeding a first threshold; alayer 1 (L1) reference signal received power (RSRP) with MPR reductionfor the unsafe UL beam being less than a second threshold; an L1-RSRPfor the first UL beam exceeding a third threshold; or an MPR for thefirst UL beam being less than a fourth threshold; and wherein the first,second, third, and fourth thresholds are predefined by a standard orconfigured via higher layer signaling with a network.
 19. Thenon-transitory computer readable memory medium of claim 17, wherein,when the one or more remedial actions includes triggering an inter-panelswitch to the second UL beam, the programming instructions are furtherexecutable to cause the UE to: perform a contention based physicalrandom access control channel (PRACH) based procedure to switch adownlink (DL) beam to pair with the second UL beam.
 20. Thenon-transitory computer readable memory medium of claim 17, wherein uponcompletion of the PRACH based procedure, the second UL beam and the DLbeam are based on a synchronization signal block (SSB) or a channelstate information reference signal (CSI-RS) identified by the PRACHbased procedure.